Wini Ashooh

"Crossing the street Papa says 'La mano' and he takes my hand." The love between a father and his son is apparent in Papa and Me by Arthur Dorros. The strong bond between them leaps from the colorfully illustrated pages of this book. As they begin their morning and make breakfast together and head to the bus, they revel in the joy of a simple day.

While making breakfast together, they invent a "special food." "Sabroso" they declare, delicious, as they taste the eggs and pancakes. The book uses both English and Spanish to tell the simple story. The characters are happy and they move between English and Spanish effortlessly. 

When my son was in kindergarten, he was diagnosed with a "lazy eye."  I do not know if that is still the appropriate term to use, but the result was that he had to wear a patch over one eye (the stronger one) to force the other eye to work harder and to strengthen.  In the book The Pirate of Kindergarten, by George Ella Lyon, the main character, Ginny, receives a similar diagnosis when she does not pass a routine vision screening at school.  Ginny has difficulty seeing.  She runs into things in the classroom, and some of her classmates laugh at her.  Ginny loves reading but when she reads she has trouble seeing the letters, and she has to get very close to the page.  The imagery of the letters hopping "around like popcorn" and the number 2 looking more like a swan help bring the reader into Ginny's world.

You are invited to join members of the library's Youth Services Team as they choose the title they think will win this year's Sibert Award.  The youth services staff  will hold a mock awards ceremony prior to the actual announcement.  Please join us at 4 p.m on Thursday, January 19, in the Headquarters Library Theater. 

The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal is awarded annually to the author and illustrator of a children's informational book published in the United States in the preceding year. The award is named in honor of Robert F. Sibert, the long time President of Bound to Stay Bound Books of Jacksonville, Illinois. The actual award winner for 2011 will be announced  at 7:45 a.m. CT on January 23, 2012.

On January 9th, team members will present and discuss the following titles which they have chosen as finalists:

Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins and illustrated by Vicky White

The tiger is just one of thousands of animals -- including the ground iguana, the white-rumped vulture, and the partula snail -- currently in danger of becoming extinct, joining the dodo, the marsupial wolf, the great auk, and countless others we will never see again.

Flesh and Blood so Cheap: The Triangle Fire and its Legacy by Albert Marrin

Provides a detailed account of the disastrous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City, which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers in 1911, and examines the impact of this event on the nation's working conditions and labor laws.

You met Griffin Bing and his friends in Swindle and followed their escapades in Zoobreak.  Now Gordon Korman has brought the gang back in his latest installment--Framed.  Griffin always seems to find trouble even when he is not looking for it.  In this latest adventure, Cedarville Middle School has become the recipient of of a Super Bowl ring.  It is put on display in the school's trophy cabinet.  Suddenly, it goes missing. Griffin is held responsible for the heist. His friends decide to prove his innocence and set out to find the real thief.

Griffin has an eclectic group of friends.  There is Ben Slovak, who suffers from narcolepsy and has a therapeutic ferret, and Savannah Drysdale, an avid animal enthusiast.  Logan is a budding actor, and Pitch is a super athlete.  Together with several other characters, the team assembles a sophisticated crime-busting enterprise as they attempt to identify the actual perp.  However, Griffin is sent to "JFK" - Jail for Kids. He is being framed for the crime. He has a reputation of being a trouble maker throughout his town of Cedarville. Even though the John F. Kennedy Alternative School is not a detention center, he is not supposed to see his friends. However, a pesky little detail like that never stopped Griffin.  There is a monitoring system installed in his home and when he ventures beyond the required boundaries a comic episode occurs.

Ella Fitzgerald developed a love for music and singing while she was a young girl growing up in New York.  She and her mother Tempie used to dance around their apartment while Ella's younger sister Frances repeatedly put the needle back to the beginning of the record so that they could dance and sing the day away.  They had such a grand time that they forgot all about the washing and the ironing.  The book Skit Skat Raggedy Cat Ella Fitzgerald by Roxanne Orgill and illustrated by Sean Qualls introduces us to the young Ella.  At thirteen, Ella and her friend Charlie were singing and dancing on Morgan Street outside the apartment building.  It was 1930 in Yonkers New York and people did not have much money.  But some folks were able to spare some change for Ella and Charlie.  They occasionally had a nickel or two tossed at them.

Charlie and Ella put their nickels together and they were able to take the Number 1 trolley to the end of the line.  From there they climbed aboard the subway train to 125th Street.  They were in Harlem.  Ella watched the dancers at the Savoy Ballroom on Lenox Avenue.  When Ella and Charlie danced outside the theatre, people tossed them their loose change.  They were making more money than the shoeshine boys.  Ella knew that she was going to be famous and she told everyone so.

Imagine receiving an invitation to a soiree at the home of Gertrude Stein--number 27 Rue de Fleurus in Paris.  If you read Paris in the Spring with Picasso, by Joan Yolleck, you will feel as if you have.  This is an imaginary tale written by the author after a trip to the library where she passed the time reading about Stein.  She created a story about famous artists and authors as they prepare for an evening's festivities.  The young reader is introduced to such characters as Pablo Picasso and Alice B. Toklas.

Fourteen-year-old Zach Harriman lives in New York City with his mother and father.  He has been living the life of a typical teen until his father is killed under mysterious circumstances. In Mike Lupica's book Hero, Zach decides that following the devastating loss of his father, he wants to get to the bottom of the story.  He knows that his father was powerful and had the ear of the President of the United States.  He knows that his father was very skilled in his job of "getting things done."  Zach suspects that his father's death was no accident but a premeditated murder by an organization known as the "bads."

Zach's mother decides to throw herself into the presidential campaign for the candidate that Zach's father supported.  Though Zach supports his mother's political efforts, he decides to turn his energies towards the investigation of his father's death.  He starts asking questions.  He also begins to notice that he is being followed.  While walking though Central Park he is approached by a mysterious stranger who has information for him.  When Zach tells his beloved Uncle John about this man, he warns him to stay away from the stranger.  Who should Zach believe?

Jimi Hendrix was an iconic force in rock and roll.  His name is synonymous with music.  In the book Jimi Sounds Like a Rainbow, author Gary Golio introduces us to the young Jimi.  The book begins in 1956 in Seattle, Washington, where Jimi was living with his father.  They were not wealthy, but Jimi's father recognized that his son had a love for music.  Jimi often practiced on his one-string ukele.  With it he recreated the sounds the raindrops made as they hit the roof and the windowpanes.  Even as a very young boy he interpreted the city sounds that he heard outside the boardinghouse where he lived with his Dad and turned them into melodies.

Boris the cat wakes up one morning and finds that his shadow has changed.  It no longer resembles him.  In fact, to his utter dismay, it resembles a mouse.  But he decides not to let something like this ruin his day in the book Boris and the Wrong Shadow by Leigh Hodgkinson.  However, he is ridiculed by his cat friends.  He is unable to scare the birds.  Now Boris begins to doubt that he is a cat.  Maybe he is a mouse.  Well, he catches a glimpse of himself and is reassured that he is still a cat, though he is a cat with a mouse's shadow.

Boris decides to quietly investigate this disturbing turn of events.  Actually, he is so quiet that he could be described as being quiet as a ..........don't say it.  Suddenly, he runs into Vernon the mouse and discovers that Vernon's shadow looks oddly familiar.  Vernon has a cat shadow.  Not just any cat shadow.  But Boris' shadow.

When the Brothers Grimm wrote their fairy tales in Germany in the early 1800s, they were scary.  Many of them were so scary, in fact, that they were considered unsuitable for small children.  As time passed, the stories have been altered to give them wider audience appeal.  In A Tale Dark and Grimm, Adam Gidwitz has brought the scary back to Grimm.  This is not a fairy-tale book meant for small children.  The author gives fair warning periodically throughout the story that the tale is going to get gory and it does!!!